Friday, August 04, 2006

A rare sighting of the Shy Bald Headed Steve Buzzard, alongside Eadaoin, Kirsten, with myself in the background.

A surprise birthday destination ended up in the Blue Mountains for our friend Eadaoin Corcoran, who was also hit with a surprise party at the Irish Club, Weston when she returned. Eadaoin will not believe anyone from now on, certainly not Kirsten or daughter Jamie ! A guest at the following day's bar-b-que, in fact a real Guest, was Barry Guest who had traveled from Sydney with partner Mary. Ex Woronora Bush Band member Baz and I had jammed a couple of years back at a similar function at the Steve and Eadaoin Burra manor and it was a treat to back him again on some Irish tunes. We then wandered into some blues, old rock 'n roll and bush music. Baz, who is 6'4" was called B1, and I was B2, or Stumpy due possibly to a marginal height difference. Big Baz is an excellent cello maker, using Australian woods, and he can be located at BLOG Cellos-By-Guest.

Another surprise birthday destination ended at the Blue Mountains for my wife Denise. We had an enjoyable two days at the warm and cosy Pardolote Cottage, with its central heating, wood fire and spa. The large well maintained garden will be a delight over the coming months right through to Autumn, in fact even in Winter the camellias were blooming. Mountain scenery is so spectacular, it was years since we were there and despite heavy rain on the first day we thoroughly enjoyed it.

We met my brother Stuart at the Isobar Jazz Cafe/restaurant in Katoomba, which he calls Balmain in the mountains, and had an enjoyable meal and chat. Well, it's a rather unusual town, faded gentility to modern chic buildings, home to wonderful second hand bookshops and good eateries and some rather exotic species of humanity which festoon the streets. The mountain scenery is timeless and some pics can be found at my webshots site in the latest folder.

Norman Lindsay: Adolescence

Some pics also of the Faulconbridge property owned by artist and author Norman Lindsay, who was infamous back in the twenties for his nymphs and satyrs, in fact Norman adored the female nude no matter who was wearing it, the more the merrier. Huge hipped women with wobbly bums populate his pictures and actually drop from the sky in one extravagant painting "Spring" I think it was called!!. Yea the old Norman was a fabulous aficionado of the female form.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

First off I want to say great blog! I had a quick question that I'd like to ask if you do not mind. I was curious to know how you center yourself and clear your thoughts before writing.I have had difficulty clearing my mind in getting my ideas out.I truly do enjoy writing but it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are lost simply just trying to figure out how to begin. Any suggestions or hints? Kudos!

About Me

Well it's been a long road with stones in my pathway, in the words of Robert Johnson. There have been times when my left eye was jumpin',rain was fallin', and some mule kickin' in my stall, but one persevered and basically just went about one's business. Pain is overrated. I subscribe to Mal Fraser's view that "life is not meant to be easy" but I suspect that Mal may have appropriated this concept. There is a huge inequality in breakfast, even more now that the Abbott Guv'ment [sic] is here, as self serving as you would expect. The bleatings of a senile goat will have more significance for the Human Race. Yea the Lord Above is asleep, or watching The Sopranos, god bless Him, I think He's retired and some might say that it's a good thing. But there is beauty and there is love. More biographical details can be found at my webbo http://bmcgloin.homemail.com.au/
Photos at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/barry.mcgloin